(1) Field of Invention
The invention relates to access to personal computers. More specifically, the invention relates to providing distributed access to a personal computer by mostly cordless I/O devices located throughout the home or office.
(2) Related Art
Existing personal computer systems typically adhere to a two-foot model in which a grab bag of parts such as a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse are available only if the user is present at (e.g., within two feet of) the computer system. If an application needs to render a sound, it defaults to the system's speakers because the application assumes that the user can hear the sound from those speakers. If the application must perform speech recognition, it uses the default system microphone because the user being locally located can speak into the system microphone. In the typical system, direct input comes from a one and only keyboard. Display information is provided to the system monitor, which is typically the only monitor. In this two foot model, it is implicitly assumed that the user is a local user. Thus, the application always think they know where the user is. Unfortunately, there is no way, when this assumption fails, for the application to identify where input/output communications should be received or sent.
As cordless I/O devices become increasingly common, the above assumption becomes less and less reliable. It is certainly possible to envision the situation in which I/O devices communicating with a host PC are located throughout the home or office. In such circumstances, it would become essential for applications to be able to identify a particular I/O device as a source or destination for particularly input/output stream.